In the last Sunday Morning Bible Study series devotion, we saw that Solomon thought that everything was futile. This daily devotional looks at how he saw that time has a circular, balanced component that allows for growth.
Nuggets
- Life can be ever changing, but God is in control.
- Balance in our lives must be maintained by submitting the control to God.
- We have to strengthen the belief in ourselves to strengthen our belief in God.
Devotions in The Meaning of Life series
We have a saying in central Illinois. If you don’t like the weather, stick around five minutes. It will change.
I kid you not. One day, in the eight hours that I was at work, we had a heat wave, a tornado warning, and the start of a blizzard. I forget how much snow we actually got. I don’t think it ended up to be that much inches wise, but it was white-out conditions.
Yeah. Anything can happen. Sometimes, we take that as anything will happen.
We can also look at that as life is a cycle. It is ever changing.
Let’s look to see how Solomon took it.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
Time as a Cycle
“There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven: a time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to throw stones and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace and a time to avoid embracing; a time to search and a time to count as lost; a time to keep and a time to throw away; a time to tear and a time to sew; a time to be silent and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace” (Ecc. 3: 1-8 CSB)
Life can be ever changing, but God is in control.
We normally interpret this passage as meaning life is a cycle. We see this in nature as seasons change throughout the year and then start over as a new year begins.
It is comforting to know that things do not remain the same. Things can grow. A baby is born and grows.
I would not have wanted Adam to stay six months old his entire life. Oh, don’t get me wrong. He was the cutest kid at that age.
I didn’t want to have to feed and carry him his entire life. He couldn’t talk to me in words.
I would have missed so many laughs with Adam. Who would I have learned how to play Pokémon from if not him? Who would I have gone to watch Iron Man with and all of the rest of the Marvel movies?
Who would there be to remind me when I get writer’s block to pray? I wouldn’t get texts on my phone with great sayings.
That means we can grow as disciples, too. We may not understand everything right out of the chute when we ABCD. We can’t. Not everything is in Scriptures.
God reveals Himself even more to us after we become His children.
The Balance of Time
Balance in our lives must be maintained by submitting the control to God.
Goodwin felt that Solomon was talking about balancing our time. He contended that we should not leave things to chance.
Sunday, according to Goodwin, should be seen as a day of service. Yes, we should serve God daily.
But Goodwin had a good point. Because we have Sunday set aside as a day of worship, according to Goodwin, “… no man can by possibility live in this country, and not know that prayer and praise are a duty; few men can have failed to have heard of Christ’s Sacraments, however much they may have neglected them.”
Resource
In that way, Sunday isn’t just for the disciples. It is a tool for witnessing.
Unfortunately, it was probably a greater tool back in the day that statement was written than it is now. The lost are not beating on the doors to get in to hear salvation’s story these days.
That doesn’t mean we should abandon all of the churches. We still need prominent God’s houses in a dark and dying world.
Field reminded us we don’t have control of when we are born or when we die (Ecc. 3: 2). We do have control of a lot that happens in between.
Resource
Much of what happens is based on the choices that we make. Yes, some is based on the choices made by our parents.
That, however, ends. We take control of our lives when we become adults. We can change our lives.
What happens to us also happens for a purpose. I have no idea why I am having seizures, but I know God will use it for His purpose.
Maybe how I reacting to it will be a witness to Him. He may want others to see how I am looking to Him in my search for answers. He may want others to see how I accept whatever answer I eventually find.
Isn’t that a part of the cycle and balance? It is a part of the submission.
A Time to Grow
We have to strengthen the belief in ourselves to strengthen our belief in God.
I don’t know if I am reading this right, but this is what I got out of it. Walters took a this another way. He took this as there was a period in our lives where we used to be under the influence of Satan.
Now, we belong to God. We have become His children.
Because of this, Walters encouraged us to “cultivate earnestness of character.” We have to believe in ourselves, too.
Resource
- “And I sent messengers to them, saying, ‘I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?’” (Neh. 6: 3 ESV).
- “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead” (Phil. 3: 13 CSB).
Let me say it again. We have to strengthen the belief in ourselves to strengthen our belief in God.
If we think God is wasting His time on us, we won’t accept His gift of salvation.
Let’s turn this around a little bit, though. What is part of the growth stage? As Macmillion said, we have to have a share of faith and a share of doubt.
If we don’t doubt where we are at, we won’t want to change. We won’t want to grow.
Our faith won’t begin or increase if we don’t doubt what the world has to offer. We won’t grow our relationship with God if we don’t believe there can’t be more.
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I think this is where the time to kill and time to heal comes in, too. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2: 20 ESV).
Not that long ago, we had a whole series on the Silence of the Soul. Silence is good. We can hear God that way.
To read a devotion in the Silence of the Soul series, click on the button below.
Making the Connections
Hardman talked about how a husband man would prepare his vineyard. He wrote, “These vineyards were often cultivated on the steep sides of the vales, and the traveller wonders to see under what difficult circumstances he toils, gathering up the stones which lie thickly on the ground, and carrying up soil and building up terraces in which to plant the vines.”
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The pebbles are there in the fields. They have to be removed. The husband man has to take the time to remove them. He has to prepare the field.
We have to prepare the field of our hearts. Sin is the pebbles that has taken up residence. It has to be cut out.
God is the only One Who can do that. He is the One Who designed the Plan of Salvation. He asked Jesus to be the Sacrifice.
But we have to prepare our hearts. We have to repent.
How Do We Apply This?
Field wrote, “Make it, then, your resolve to live a life of the strictest temperance and purity and virtue, that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God giveth you.”
Resource
• Temperance is habitual moderation or self-control.
• Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
• Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
Goodwin reminded us that there are no changing seasons in Heaven. We have only one job there — worship God.
There will be no night and day. There will be no spring or fall, summer or winter.
We will all just be praising the One true God.
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We have to be ready. That means we have to ABCD.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Everything has its proper place in time. God is in control of that place.
Father God. You are in control of everything. You are in control of time, of the seasons, and of life. We thank You that You do not change. You love us and provide for us when we submit to You. Amen.
What do you think?
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